


This Is How It Changes

by CaptainLeBubbles



Series: The Way It Changes [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Grimmons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3507866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how it changes: Epsilon, not Tex, is captured by the Meta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I normally don't like fix-it fics but I suppose we've all got one in us somewhere.
> 
> Canon divergent beginning at the end of Series 8.

o/o

This is how it changes:

Tex doesn't get trapped in the memory unit. Instead, she blows up the cliff and goes down with it. The Meta has his bruteshot (Maine's bruteshot) and Wash has Doc. Texas has no one and nothing but a wounded robot who can't get to her to help. She goes down.

The Meta is angry. The Meta is stubborn. The Meta is _tired_.

He takes Epsilon instead.

*

This is how it changes:

Epsilon slides into the neural pathways of the Meta's head like silk and fills them up. He's so close to being metastable himself, and there's nothing in this head to fight him, nothing that even wants to fight him.

Epsilon is angry. Epsilon is scared. And Epsilon does what Epsilon does. He  _remembers_ .

The memories aren't his. They're not the Director's, and they're not the Alpha's.

They belong to Wash, and Epsilon had forgotten them until this moment, this moment when he once again found himself in a Freelancer's head.

*

This is what Epsilon remembers:

Rough stubble against his cheek while Maine snores in his ear. Soft purrs of contentment while he rubs tension from massive shoulders. Being curled up in a medbay chair, holding Maine's hand and telling him it'll be okay, it'll be okay, just hang in there buddy, it'll be okay.

He remembers shore leave, remembers finding themselves on a beach at two in the morning, half-drunk on alcohol and rare freedom, and deciding that the best thing to do with that freedom is to build the best sandcastle ever, of all time. (He remembers that, once sober, the sandcastle was nothing to brag about. They took a picture of it anyway. It's in Wash's personal files in his storage unit.) He remembers waking up before Maine and deciding to see how much of the man he could bury before he woke up and he remembers getting sand shoved down the back of his shorts for the effort. (He remembers that he was washing sand out of his ass for weeks after that. He swears there's still some grit in there.)

He remembers a mission where he nearly died, but what was new about that, he was always nearly dying, and he remembers that Maine had literally pulled the other soldier's arm off for it, and he remembers the worried, tense hisses and growls from a man too on edge to bother with words. (He remembers understanding him anyway; Mainespeak is a language he knows like his favorite song. A hiss that slams facefirst into a growl before curling up into a grunt.  _Don't you fucking die, Wash, or I'll march into the fucking afterlife and drag you out_ . He remembers a weak chuckle, remembers thinking that stories are full of the fools who tried that and remembers thinking that Maine could probably succeed anyway even though it's supposed to be impossible. Maine tended to take 'impossible' as a challenge.)

He remembers that sick feeling in his gut when Maine started pushing him away, remembers the way he'd wondered if Maine had finally gotten tired of him and remembers the way Maine wasn't Maine anymore when they were together, the way he seemed- different, the way he always seemed to be playing some game. (Sigma, he remembers, and the name sends fire into the neural pathways that he's sliding along, fire and pain and hate and hate and hate and he's so damn  _tired_ .) He remembers thinking that it's the combination of adjusting to both cybernetic enhancements (he remembers Maine'd lost more than his voice to the freeway battle, but Maine was too valuable to let die so they'd replaced his broken body parts with shiny new ones, scary new ones that made him twice as fast, ten times as strong, and a hundred times as deadly) and to the neural implants (he remembers thinking later and wondering if Maine had realized, if Maine was pushing him away to protect him, because to Sigma- more fire, more pain, more  _tired_ \- Wash was only ever a puzzle and a game and Maine would never have allowed Sigma to hurt him, even if it meant he had to instead).

*

He starts to remember other things too. Things that belong to Maine, because he's in Maine's head and Maine's memories are still in here even if Maine's not here to remember them.

*

This is what Epsilon remembers:

Blond hair that refuses to lie flat, no matter how much Maine tries (and oh how he tries, because it's an excuse to play with that beautiful soft hair). Freckles, and the way he used to try kissing each and every one until he'd lose track and start over. Grey eyes, more silver than steel, with not so many lines around them and always, always so trusting.

He remembers hours spent on the training room floor, teaching this dumb rookie (his dumb rookie) how to be a Freelancer. He remembers the way Wash had adapted his movements to Maine's, how he'd spotted Maine's weaknesses and covered them without a second thought, he remembers the way Wash had done that with all of them, learning all sorts of specialties but never mastering any of them. He remembers Wash pushing himself to be better not because of a stupid leaderboard ranking, but because the better he got the more he could protect his teammates in battle. He remembers wondering if Wash would ever get tired of playing second fiddle to everyone and realizing that working as a team was the thing Wash is best at so of course not, of course not.

He remembers Christmas aboard the Mother of Invention one year, when Florida had hung mistletoe everywhere and everyone had ignored it because  _fuck that_ , except he also remembers Connie catching Wash and he remembers Wash giving Connie a friendly peck because  _it's tradition, it's harmless_ and he remembers grabbing Wash moments later and dragging him under the nearest sprig and kissing him hard enough to bruise, hard enough to drag a moan from him even with everyone right there to hear. He remembers when they pulled away he had patted Wash on the cheek and growled “Tradition.” before walking away. He remembers York making a joke about Maine marking his territory but he remembers the doofus grin on Wash's face and letting the joke slide because, really, wasn't that what he was doing?

He remembers shore leave, when they'd been near enough for Wash to pay a visit home and he remembers the way Wash had begged him to come along and see where he'd lived. He remembers Wash taking him to the house he grew up in where his sister still lived, and remembers the way she'd run out to meet him and hugged him for what seemed like hours when they'd arrived. He remembers feeling awkward while she cried into Wash's hair (David's hair, he remembers, because that's who Wash was to her) and remembers he just stood there, until she'd finally pulled herself together and broke their embrace with a sniffle. He remembers Wash introducing her (Will, her name was Will, and he remembers, because it's important) and he remembers the way she'd stared up at him, clearly intimidated but not much because Maine was important to her baby brother and if Wash (David) had brought him home with him then that must mean that there was more to him than the enormous scarred mountain of muscle looming over her.

He remembers a medbay bed, with Wash lying in it, unconscious and neck covered in claw marks where he'd tried to pull the AI out of his head. He remembers that it was the first time in ages that he'd been able to wrest full control away from Sigma (fire, pain,  _tired_ ) and he remembers holding Wash's hand and wishing things would be different. And he remembers those eyes opening and he remembers there was something missing behind them, remembers that sweetness that was so  _Wash_ was gone. He remembers that his eyes were steel now, not silver, and remembers realizing that it was the AI, that it always came down the AI, that this was what had ruined him, ruined Wash, ruined everything.

*

This is what Epsilon remembers: it was his brother who broke Maine. It was he who broke Wash.

*

He starts looking now, because he knows he must be in there somewhere, even if he has to dig the man out bit by bit from all the layers that the other AI buried him under. He has to try, because he remembers Wash, and because he remembers Allison, and because he remembers.

It takes awhile. He's dimly aware of something going on outside the head he's found himself in, something intense and action-packed and explosiony, and he remembers Project Freelancer and the good old days and remembers Blood Gulch and  _those_ good old days and decides that these explosions have Red Team written all over them. But he can't afford to see what's going on because he has a job to do. Because he has something he has to make right, because he remembers.

*

He finds him, eventually. Finds him in a room like Wash's room back on the Mother of Invention, because Maine's room has too many harsh memories and Wash's room is full of good ones.

*

This is what Epsilon finds:

The room is dark. Not dark like the lights are off, dark like parts are missing. The walls break off into shadow, the world exists as a small patch of light in a small room in a memory. There's an echo there, a soft laugh, a gentle touch, nothing tangible, nothing solid, but there's a- a  _sense_ of Wash, surrounding him in this tiny echo of a room.

The AI had pushed Maine deep down into his own head and buried him in rubble, and in the small space he'd been buried in Maine had built a shadow of his love, a place where he could shut off his awareness of what was being done to him, by him, with him, and just remember.

Epsilon remembers.

He understands.

*

Maine growls when he senses Epsilon. The AI never came down this far. Maine doesn't like him being here, but he has to try. Epsilon shapes the room until it feels more solid, more stable, and forms a shape of himself in front of Maine, in front of the shadow that once was Maine.

_Do you know who I am?_ he asks, and Maine hisses softly, thoughts cloudy.

**Director?**

_ No, I'm not him. I'm an AI, part of an AI. I was based on him. _ A beat.  _ I'm Epsilon _ .

Silence. He can feel Maine trying to remember.

**Wash?**

_That's right. I'm Epsilon, I was Wash's AI._

A growl, harsh and echoing and angry, so angry.

** You hurt him ** .

_Yes._

He doesn't bother to deny it. He doesn't make excuses. He doesn't point out that he was being driven mad, that he'd been told Wash was dead and the paradox of waking up in a dead man's head and realizing that he'd been lied to hadn't helped, because Maine doesn't need to hear that. He's angry enough as it is, and Epsilon making excuses won't do any good.

_Yes, I hurt him. I hurt him very badly and very permanently. That's why I'm here. That's why I came to find you. Wash is out there and he's hurting, and he needs you. I'm here to try to make things right, or at least better than they are, which is a fucking low bar, by the way, and I think maybe pulling you back into your own mind might-_

_Fuck._

Maine doesn't find out what pulling him back into his own mind might do because Epsilon freezes. He's finally caught up with what's going on outside and it's not good, it's not good at all.

He vanishes, and the shadows lengthen and the echo returns. Maine wonders if this is some new game of Sigma's, some new way of playing with him.

*

This is how it changes:

The Meta goes down when Sarge fires his shotgun. He never gets to use Wash's plan of pulling the Meta off a cliff with the Warthog (though he still considers it anyway) because the Meta collapses.

It's not from wounds, and Wash knows it. He's seen Maine take far worse punishment and shrug it off; a single round from a shotgun wouldn't do anything more than tickle.

The memory unit sparks, and dies. The Meta lies in the snow, motionless, and Wash swallows bile at the realization that he's dead, that the Meta (that Maine) is dead, even though they'd been trying to kill him and even though he knows that Maine was already long dead, long before everything went to hell (or maybe things went to hell the moment Maine died inside his own head, because a world without his Maine in it  _ is _ hell).

He climbs to his feet against his better judgment and in stark defiance of the many parts of his body that are begging him to lie back down, and he staggers over to that body (that massive body that he knows so well) and rolls it over, and tugs off the helmet and sets it carefully aside. His own helmet joins it a moment later, two helmets watching him, no doubt wondering what the hell he's doing.

It's Maine there now, not the Meta, but Maine, his friend, his love, Maine's scarred face staring blankly up at him. He rests his forehead on Maine's and brushes his fingers along a beard that had grown because Sigma had never cared to shave it off (it doesn't suit him, he thinks) and he weeps, because Maine is dead  _ Maine is dead _ and he can finally understand why the Director did the things he did, except he can't forgive him, can't ever forgive him, because the things he did are the reason Maine is dead.

*

He's never allowed himself to mourn his friends. He's always been careful, stoic, always tied up that grief in a neat little package that he tucked away deep inside himself and pretended it didn't exist.

Except now those neat little packages have grown and the ache in his chest isn't because of his cracked ribs or the bullet wounds or the shrapnel, it's the ache of all those years alone, not letting himself cry for them, and he weeps, because Maine is dead, because Carolina is dead, because York is dead, because North and South and Connie (always Connie, never CT) and Florida and Wyoming and Theta and Delta and Tex are dead, because they're all dead and he's alone now.

The Reds and Blues keep their distance. They're soldiers, they've all been there. They know.  _ They know _ .

So they don't approach and they don't say anything because  _ they know _ and it doesn't matter that the Meta was  _ just _ trying to kill them, it doesn't matter that Wash himself had killed one of their own, they let him be. They'll deal with him later, because right now he needs this.

*

This is how it changes:

Maine is alone inside his own head for the first time in ages. Alpha had ripped Sigma, ripped the other AI, from the neural pathways, and had let the EMP take them all, but Epsilon had opened those pathways up, had pulled out the discarded remains, the shadows that the AI had left behind, the shades that had been controlling the body that was once Maine's and now everything is quiet and Maine is alone inside his own head for the first time in ages.

The first thing Maine is aware of as he emerges slowly, cautiously, carefully from his tiny room is that he is cold, that he is tired ( _ so tired _ ) and that there is someone there, someone pressing their foreheads together and that that someone is crying.

It takes him several more moments to register the voice that goes along with the crying, the softly repeating  _ “I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry” _ in between sobs and several more moments to realize that the voice belongs to Wash, but how could he have recognized it, when it's so much harder than he remembers? Wash's voice is supposed to be light, and sweet, and happy, and now it's got steel in it and the edges are rough, and he's crying and Maine wants to comfort him and tell him to stop apologizing, it's not his fault, it's Maine's, Maine is the one who hurt him, and for the first time in ages the thing Maine wants to do and the thing his body does is the same.

Sort of.

*

This is what happens:

Maine hasn't used his body himself for a long time and doesn't quite remember how. His hand twitches. He growls, softly, non-cohesive. No meaning.

But it happens. And it happens because  _ he _ wants it to.

It's a start.

*

This is what happens:

Wash notices. He hears the growl and he feels the twitch of the hand and he realizes that the Meta (that Maine) is still alive. He scrambles to his feet- “Doc! Doc, get over here  _ now _ !”- and summons the wary medic and through an incoherent babble manages to get across what he wants.

Doc has taken a lot of abuse over the past few days, most of it at the hands of the Meta. It would be easy to let him die, would be a kindness, really, if what he's heard is true.

*

This is what happens instead:

He calls the Reds and Blues over and orders them (orders, not asks, not requests, not passive aggressively mentions that he wants it to happen, but  _ orders _ them) to carry the body inside and to find a medbay or an infirmary or heck, a first aid kit will do, and to do that  _ now _ , and they do, because Doc  _ never _ gives orders but then, there are a lot of things happening lately that never happen.

Caboose is the one who carries him, because Maine is big and Maine is almost entirely muscle and machine and Maine is  _ heavy _ but Caboose lifts him like a doll and carries him inside, lays him on a table, and steps back to see what happens next.

The first thing Doc does is remove the memory unit. The second thing he does is ask the Reds to take care of Wash's wounds until Doc can get to them himself. The third thing he does is start to peel away Maine's armor, and Wash doesn't budge as the Reds try to get him away, because he needs to see, needs to see for himself that Maine is still there under the armor.

Doc sets the armor carefully aside and then follows the underarmor, and Wash chokes on a sob because he doesn't know the body under that armor anymore. There are new scars, and that's nothing strange, because they were always picking up scars, but Wash doesn't know where any of them came from, doesn't know which ones he gave him himself, and they're so badly healed because Sigma never gave the body he was controlling time to recover before he pushed it further to gain his goal, and Wash's heart is breaking because those aren't scars that Maine would be proud of, those are the scars that he would pull Wash's hand away from when he traced them, scars that Maine would grunt “Failure,” over when Wash asked and give him no more about.

He lets the Reds lead him away. They prove surprisingly capable of patching him up, though Sarge makes some worrying comments about robot kits that make Wash glad when they leave him alone to rest.

*

This is what happens:

Wash has barely had time to lean back and close his eyes when he hears the sounds of Pelicans approaching and Caboose runs in yelling about people coming. Wash sighs, and doesn't bother opening his eyes. They'll be after the Epsilon unit, and they'll take Wash and Maine away and the sim troopers will be able to get on with their lives.

*

This is what happens instead:

Caboose drags Epsilon's body into the base, into the room where Wash is resting, and then goes and gets Tucker and drags him in too, and he babbles something incoherent about not letting them take Washingtub or the Kitty-Man away and Tucker seems to understand what Caboose wants because he pulls Epsilon's body upright and begins peeling the armor away. Caboose hands it wordlessly to Wash and Wash thinks he understands now. He zips his underarmor back up (it chafes against unhealed wounds) and sets Epsilon's armor in place over it. It isn't exactly the right size but it's close enough and once he's done he helps Tucker put his armor in place over Epsilon.  _ If anyone asks, your name is Agent Washington _ , he thinks, and follows Caboose and Tucker into the medbay.

The Reds are outside distracting the UNSC guys, and Wash and Tucker (with some interference from Caboose) start searching through the base until they find a spare set of discarded armor shoved in the back of a storage room. The armor is pink and the sight of it sends a sick twisting sensation through Wash's gut as he remembers the last person he saw in pink armor, but there's no time for that now and they squeeze Maine into the armor and Wash and the Blues go outside to get rid of the UNSC people.

*

This is what happens:

The UNSC guys buy their story about Maine and Texas going over the cliff, buy the story about them managing to kill Washington because of his wounds from fighting the other two, and buy the story about the pink soldier inside who got severely wounded in the battle. They give the simulation troopers permission to remain at the base for as long as they need to nurse their buddy back to health and take the empty body and the Epsilon unit away and Wash can't believe they actually bought that and more than that, he can't believe that the simulation troopers had helped him, just like that, even after everything he'd put them through.

But they do.

That doesn't change.

*

o/o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just really like the image of them stuffing Maine into pink armor and passing him off as one of their own I'm so sorry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maine becomes more like himself. Enter Carolina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Events that get glossed over are ones that more-or-less follow their canon counterparts.

o/o

*

This is what changes:

They don't go back to Valhalla. They stay at the base on Sidewinder, waiting for Maine to get better.

Wash isn't really sure why. He still can't figure out what any of this means, he just knows that Maine is still in his head somewhere, and Wash is going to get him out. He isn't sure of anything else anymore. He's not sure he was ever sure of anything since the day he woke up in the medbay and realized that everything he knew was a lie (no, not everything. Maine had loved him, had meant it when he said it, and it had been to protect him that he'd pushed Wash away. Wash was sure of that).

So he stays, because Maine is all he has left, and the Reds and Blues stay, for reasons beyond his comprehension.

*

(Later, much later, on a planet called Chorus on a starry night before everything goes to hell again, Wash and Tucker will sit staring up at the sky and Wash will ask, and Tucker will shrug and say that Wash needed them, and he won't say anything else and Wash will fall silent and think about that for awhile before deciding he's incredibly lucky to have found a new family after his old one fell apart. But that will not come for a while yet, and for now Wash is just very confused.)

*

Maine doesn't wake up immediately. Doc says that his body has been under an incredible amount of strain and that it needs to rest. He fills Maine's wounds with biofoam and tells Wash to wait, and then he leaves because he's been called away to tend to another wounded soldier and he's the nearest medic and Wash wants to ask him to stay, but he can't because he's done more for Wash than he deserves already.

So Wash just watches him go and pulls a chair over beside the bed and rests his hand over Maine's own massive one, and he's nearly asleep when the hand twitches and the fingers slide ever so slightly between his, and he cries again, because he's pent up a lot of emotions over the years and those are all fighting to get out and Wash doesn't have the energy to stop them anymore but it doesn't matter because Maine is alive _Maine is alive_.

*

This is what happens:

Once Maine realizes that his body is his own again, he starts fighting his way out. Fighting is what he does, and if his fighting is tentative, careful, and full of retreats, it's because he's been trapped for years now in a tiny space of his mind, but he's fighting again, fighting to fill up those empty neural pathways with himself again, and that's the important part.

Wash is there, somewhere on the periphery of his awareness, and sometimes Maine can hear him crying and once he manages to find the pathway to his hand and convince it to move, to thread his fingers through the ones over his, and it's something and it's a small victory but it wears him out and he retreats, but the victory gives him hope so it's not so much longer before he starts pushing again, fighting his way free.

*

It's three days before he opens his eyes. Wash notices. He closes them again.

*

It's another two days before he makes a sound, a hiss that pirouettes into a purr.

Wash recognizes the sound as his own name.

Silence.

*

It's four more days before he opens his eyes again. He doesn't close them this time.

*

This is what happens:

It takes a full two weeks before Maine wakes up completely, but in that time his body begins to move, small movements but very real and very deliberate. They lack that careful sureness that had always been _Maine_ but there's still a very Maineness about them. Not like the Meta at all, and it fills Wash with hope to know that his friend is fighting his way back into his own body.

When Maine does finally wake up, he sits up, and makes a sound. A hiss that raises its head and ducks back down to curl around itself. An emotion. Hope, and gladness. Wash sits staring up at him, blinking up at him with fresh tears in his eyes, and Maine thinks, _I want to touch him_.

It takes a moment for the message to get through, but in the end he raises his hand and brushes away the tears sliding down Wash's face. The movement is jerky and stilted, because he's still getting the hang of it, but Wash tilts his head into Maine's massive palm anyway and sighs.

Maine tries to remember how to make sound happen, tries to remember the right pathways and the right sounds and finally, after a long silence, makes a soft purr that falls backward into a puff. Wash's chin wobbles and he turns to bury his face in Maine's hand. Maine is getting signals from his hand and he realizes it's telling him that Wash is clutching it in both of his own.

“No...” Wash is saying. “No, _I'm_ sorry. I'm so sorry. So sorry. I should have realized. I should have _known_. I should have gotten them to take that damn thing out of your head before...”

When Wash speaks, Maine sends an order to his hand, a complicated one that takes a moment to process.

He tugs his hand carefully out of Wash's hold and turns his head so he is looking at Maine again, and raises his other hand to rest on Wash's other cheek, then leans his forehead against Wash's.

It is exhausting. He closes his eyes, and just concentrates on the signals he's getting. The touch of Wash's forehead against his, the way Wash's breath feels warm and soft mingling with his own, the scratch of stubble under his palms because Wash hasn't shaved in days.

The touch of Wash's lips, chapped and cracked, when they press against his own in a chaste kiss.

“I missed you so much,” Wash mumbles, and leans his head into Maine's shoulder. Maine manages to tell his arms to wrap around Wash's back and he holds him close. _I missed you too_ , he thinks, but he doesn't have the energy to form the words.

*

This is what happens:

It takes Maine almost three months to learn to control his body again. Movement is a chore, because he has to concentrate on each one he makes. It leaves him exhausted and he takes long naps where he doesn't move at all because he's not there to tell his body what moves to make.

Quite often he gets spooked or frustrated or tired and retreats back into his own mind and he knows it scares Wash when he does that, when he goes quiet (not the same way he went quiet before, not at all) and just sits there, staring blankly at nothing. But he always fights his way out again: he has never been the sort to give up a fight, any fight. He's survived worse, he'll survive this.

*

Caboose calls Maine 'Kitty-Man'.

Maine likes Caboose. He likes all of the simulation troopers, because they make Wash laugh (Wash doesn't laugh the way he used to, putting his whole self into it. Now he just quietly chuffs, and the laughter never quite pushes the steel out of his eyes, but Maine can see the silver beneath the steel and thinks maybe Wash needs to find his way out of his own head, too.) But Caboose is special.

Caboose can't understand Maine, but he thinks he can. Maine can entertain himself for hours by saying utter nonsense and letting Caboose fill in the blanks however he wants and respond to that.

Maine also likes him because he's as strong as an ox, because when Maine gives him bearhugs he just bearhugs him right back. Because once Caboose was so happy to see him he lifted him a foot off the ground in delight. Maine likes that; it reminds him of Florida, who had a lot of strength in that small body of his.

*

(They tell him Florida is dead. That makes him go quiet for awhile, until he realizes that Tucker and Wash are talking about the man, comparing their stories of him and he pulls himself out of his head when he realizes that there's a part of his old family that was part of his new family. He asks if Florida- Captain Flowers- ever tried to get his Blues to call him Daddy. That gets a roar of laughter out of Tucker as he pictures their Captain Flowers, small campy guy with a big heart, giving massive Maine a bearhug and reassuring him that he's there for him, that he'll be his Daddy if he wants. Maine smiles. He misses Florida, but it makes him feel better to know that Tucker does too.)

*

This is what happens:

Carolina shows up just as the Reds and Blues have decided to return to Valhalla. Sidewinder is cold, and now that Maine has more control of himself they think it might be time to go home. There is an unspoken understanding among them that 'home' applies to all of them, to Wash and Maine too, and Wash can't figure it out and Maine is at a loss because _didn't he try to kill these people? Twice?_ But the Reds and Blues just go with it, and as they're piling into the jeeps they're arguing about who gets to keep 'the new guys' and it's all just so surreal and then there's a flash of teal and there's a gun pointed at Maine's head and Wash _loses it_.

He was never strong enough to beat Carolina. He'd never been any match for her and he isn't now, and Maine is no help because he's still sluggish, his commands still aren't getting where they're meant to go in time, but he just got Maine back and he isn't going to let _anyone_ take him away again, not even people who are supposed to be dead.

Carolina has him on his back in moments. She's always been stronger than him, and she came into the situation ready for a fight, ready for a fight with someone much stronger than him.

Wash is dimly aware of the Reds and Blues raising their weapons, ready to charge into yet another battle with a freelancer for Wash's sake (why do they keep doing that?) when Maine pushes Carolina away (and Maine is much stronger and it's not a fighting pushing, it's a 'you are in the way' pushing, and so she allows it) and pulls Wash to his feet.

Wash stares, then pulls off his helmet and moves closer so he can stare some more, because there could always be someone wearing Carolina's armor but no one else can move like her so it _must_ be her except Carolina is dead, and Wash briefly wonders if this is all some cosmic joke and if South and North or maybe York are gonna pop out from behind a nearby tree and yell surprise, except that can't happen because they're dead, he destroyed their bodies himself.

He starts laughing, manic and loud and not happy at all, and doesn't stop till Carolina slaps him.

*

“I'm starting to think this is all just some weird dream and one day I'm gonna wake up back in my cosy padded room and realize I imagined the whole thing.”

This is what happened:

Carolina used her grappling hook to survive being thrown off a cliff, and then didn't tell anyone because being dead seemed so much easier after everything else.

She's wary of Maine, and neither of them can blame her because the last time she saw him he threw her off a cliff after ripping her AI from her body.

(Eta and Iota. She still cries for them sometimes, for the melodious voices, like songbirds given speech, speaking in musical harmony with one another. One compassion, one empathy. Wash remembers that Eta was meant to be his and stops himself from asking which was which, and he definitely doesn't wonder how things might have been different if he had gotten it, because he's long since learned that what-ifs are a dangerous road to follow.)

But now she's gotten it into her head to kill the Director, because she was watching the news and realized that he'd escaped being sentenced because the laws he broke weren't laws at the time, and anyway there was no evidence of his crimes to convict him on, and then she saw a report that in an attempt to bring him to justice three former members of Project Freelancer were killed.

She has no love lost for Texas and doesn't believe she's dead anyway, and she had assumed Maine long since dead and taken over by Sigma, but the thought to Wash, sweet, gentle, compassionate Wash, dying over the Director's crimes, had set her in motion.

(Eta was supposed to be Wash's. Eta was compassion and he and Wash would have made a great team. She doesn't tell Wash that, because she doesn't think he wants to know.)

Carolina didn't recognize Wash in his new, cobalt-blue armor, but she recognized Maine and had seen red.

It takes a long time for Wash to get Carolina caught up.

*

This is what happens:

They agree to help Carolina, because helping Carolina means getting back one of their own. Wash is reluctant, but Caboose sounds so hopeful at the idea of seeing Church again that they agree. (Only Wash notices the way Carolina winces at the sound of the name, because only Wash knows why she does.) Besides, Epsilon and Wash were partners, once upon a time. Even if only for a little while.

As they drive toward the UNSC base where the Epsilon unit is being stored, Maine quietly informs Wash that it was Epsilon who helped pull him out of his head.

Wash feels better about the mission now.

*

(Once, a long time ago, before things went to hell, Maine and Wash had gotten two days of leave scheduled and decided to spend it together. They spent the first several hours barhopping and getting incredibly drunk before they'd found themselves on a beach, singing sea shanties that Wash remembered his dad teaching him. Wash had tried to teach Maine, but Maine wasn't much of a singer and Wash couldn't remember half the words anyway.

They'd built a sandcastle, because that's what you do when you're drunk on a beach at two in the morning, and it was the best sandcastle ever, of all time, until Wash fell asleep on top of it, for a given value of 'fallen asleep' that generally meant 'passed out'. He'd woken before Maine, though, and decided to bury his friend in sand while he slept. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Maine woke while Wash was burying him, and had lifted himself from the sand effortlessly. Wash had danced away from his grabbing hands, but after a few minutes Wash had tripped and Maine had lifted him up with one hand while the other pulled back his waistband and dumped sand down his shorts. Wash had shrieked and squirmed and when Maine let him down he'd tackled his friend in retaliation. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

The ensuing wrestling match was hilariously one-sided, because Wash was a good fighter but Maine was twice his size (or so it seemed) and built of muscle. (Wash was muscular too, but his muscle was more lean, more sinew. He was made to move, to dance through the air guns blazing. Maine was made to very pointedly _not_ move.)

Maine had Wash pinned in record time, crushing the remains of their sandcastle in the process. He lay over Wash where he'd pinned him, and Wash felt the air leave his lungs as Maine relaxed his muscles and let gravity take over so that he seemed to get _heavier_. Maine thought this was funny, and laughed, that odd half-purring half-growling rumble of his, and he'd seemed so beautiful like that, head framed out against the sky as he grinned down at Wash that Wash had lifted his head just enough to capture Maine's lips in a chaste kiss.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time.)

*

This is what happens:

Maine starts going quiet as they near the facility where Epsilon is being kept. His movements are getting jerky again, movements that had begun to smooth out more lately. They're more erratic, too, like his signals are getting jammed and being sent to the wrong place. He doesn't talk much, not even in purrs and growls.

Wash is getting twitchy too. He got twitchy the last time he went to a high security base to break Epsilon's unit out, he remembers. And when they were on their way to collect him for what Wash thought would be the last time.

Wash wonders if he'll always be twitchy at the thought of his AI.

*

This is what happens:

They pass a beach on the way to the facility. Wash orders a halt. He needs to get his head on right and he needs to figure out what's wrong with Maine. The Reds and Blues need a break. Carolina, for all that she won't admit it, needs a break. (Carolina has never, ever admitted she needed a break. Ever.)

Carolina agrees to one night because Wash is stern, and because she's never known Wash to be stern before. She wishes he were back to being the dumb kid she remembers, the one who drank from a curly straw and turned the training room into a skating course once.

(He got into so much trouble for that, but he also got the Director to crack a smile, a real smile, and that had stunned everyone and no one more than Carolina, who couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the Director actually crack an honest-to-goodness smile.)

(Actually, she can. She tries not to think about it too much.)

This Wash isn't her Wash, this Wash is stern, rough around the edges and there's steel in his voice, and he's always so tense, like a tightly coiled spring ready to let go. It scares her, because she feels like he's living on a knife edge and that if it hadn't been for the Reds and Blues, he'd have been sliced in half long ago.

(It takes her longer than she likes to realize that the hell they give each other is just their way of showing affection. They remind her of York like that, and CT before she stopped being Connie, and South before she started being angry all the time, and North before South started being angry all the time. She can see, then, why Wash likes them. But it still takes too long.)

*

They build a sandcastle on the beach. It was Caboose's idea. The others indulge him, and before too long there's a massive sand... structure.

It's really shitty.

Wash loves it.

*

Wash doesn't sing sea shanties this time. He's not drunk enough, and he thinks that if he does Carolina will do that thing she does, where she clenches her jaw so hard that it's audible. He hums them quietly, though, low enough that only Maine can hear. It helps, he thinks, because Maine goes still, but not the still that means he's withdrawing. No, this still is the still he'd once adopted, a lifetime ago, the one that meant he was concentrating on whatever had his attention.

*

(Wash's singing makes Maine remember the night they'd spent on the beach, the night before the first morning where Wash kissed him, and kept kissing him. The memory of their first kiss brings memories of other kisses, lots of other kisses, and they fill up his mind, and now his mind is full of memories that are completely his own.)

(It helps.)

*

This is what happens:

They get attacked a few hours out from the facility. The people there either aren't taking any chances, or have very enthusiastic guards. Either way, they get attacked.

Maine is still moving slow, sluggish, but he's better than before. He's less jerky. Better after the stop at the beach.

He and Carolina fight back to back, and it's just like the good old days except it isn't, because Maine is slow (not his old combat glacier slowness, just a regular, slow reaction time slowness). And because Carolina doesn't fully trust him and is wary about putting her back to him.

Maine goes quiet after the fight is over, the quiet that Wash thinks of as 'the bad quiet'. Carolina storms off, in a worse mood than usual. Wash wonders if they'll ever be okay around each other again.

*

(Fighting back to back with Carolina brings back memories, memories of other times he's fought back to back with her, and at first he thinks the memories are good, until he remembers the battle on the freeway. He remembers getting shot in the throat, remembers Carolina's anguished 'No!', remembers wrapping that pain up into a neat little package and tucking it away to deal with later. And he remembers when they scraped him up off the pavement and took him to the medbay and told him that he would never speak again and how Carolina had paced and stormed and fumed and blamed herself, until she'd told them that she wanted Maine to be given Sigma instead of her so that he could have a way of communicating.)

(Maine is afraid to go to the facility. He's afraid of the temptation that being around another AI will bring him. He's more-or-less found his way back into his head but everything is so exhausting and he's just so _tired_. He sometimes thinks it would be easier if the AI were still there, if he was still buried in that little room with his memory of Wash to surround him.)

(He hates himself for thinking that way.)

*

This is what happens:

Carolina doesn't trust Maine around an AI any more than Maine trusts himself. She sends him with the Reds and the teal (aqua?) soldier to handle extraction, because she figures once they get Epsilon out of the unit it'll be easier to keep Maine from taking him. He's still slow and sluggish and she thinks she can stop him if he tries.

It's the first time Wash and Maine have been more than one room apart since Maine first moved his hand in the snow at Sidewinder. Wash fusses; he's worried about Maine, and for a moment he seems like his old self again: fussing over an injured teammate, worrying that they aren't _quite_ ready to go back into battle again.

The ghost of a smile flits across her face, before she orders him to stop mother-henning and get to it, she needs him with her. He gives Maine one last worried look, but the other is sitting quietly in the shade beside the jeep. He turns to stare silently at Wash, and Wash can see relief in his stance, and he thinks he might understand so he turns and follows Carolina as ordered.

*

(He never once worries about leaving Maine with any of the sim troopers. They've grown rather fond of him in the past three months, something Maine can't understand but seems to accept. Wash knows they'll take care of him. He just wishes they didn't have to.)

*

This is what happens:

They save Epsilon. It's surprisingly easy.

He doesn't want to come. He's tired, he just wants to rest. The memory unit was nice and cosy; it had everyone there, all the people he remembers. Out here a lot of those people are dead and he's somehow involved in that, except not, he just remembers being involved with it. Somehow.

It's all very complicated and would make his head hurt if his head weren't a bundle of numbers and code, and it doesn't help his grumbling about being dragged from the memory unit in the first place.

Carolina tells him to suck it up and get a move on, they've got a deadline.

Church yells at her about not giving a fuck about her damn deadline because he didn't exactly ask her to come rescue him, did he?

Wash wishes he could just lie down for awhile and not have to deal with either of them.

*

This is what happens:

Epsilon comes along anyway. Now that he's out of the memory unit, he might as well. He bitches and moans but he still comes.

Outside, they meet up with their 'extraction', which turns out to be Grif and Maine in one warthog and Simmons and Tucker in the other. Wash barely has a moment to wonder how they're going to all fit when Epsilon emerges.

“ _Holy shit_ , is that the Meta? What'd you bring him for?!”

He backs away; Maine growls. _Reassurance_.

“Don't call him that,” Wash says harshly. “He's Maine now.”

Epsilon moves closer, wary, but not as afraid as Wash would expect. Maine follows his movements with his head, tracking him, but makes no other motion. Epsilon makes a sound.

“Found your way out then, huh big guy?”

Maine chuffs in response. _Necessary_. He looks over at Wash, and back at Epsilon. His purr is soft. _Needed_.

*

o/o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carolina is fun to write.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunt for the Director continues, and tensions mount between the Freelancers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, anything glossed over went pretty much the same as before, or didn't change significantly enough to mention.

o/o

*

Carolina doesn't like the Reds and Blues; the Reds and Blues don't trust Carolina. They want answers and explanations and Wash can understand that; hell, he wants them too. And Carolina doesn't think they need to know what's going on and Wash can get that, there's stuff about Project Freelancer he doesn't want them to know about either. But they could stand to meet each other halfway and they're not. Wash can feel his eye twitching every time he has to run interference between them and her.

Carlina doesn't trust Maine. He's gone quiet again since Epsilon joined them, quiet and still and keeping his distance from the AI. Carolina is clearly waiting for Maine to betray them and Maine is clearly trying to resist the temptation that Epsilon presents. Wash is doing his best to keep Maine distracted, to keep his thoughts full of himself so that the idea of letting Epsilon in to take over doesn't come to him. It's exhausting and gives him a headache.

There is an unspoken agreement between Wash and Epsilon that they will interact as little as possible. Unfortunately, they're still working closely and they _have_ to be around each other some, it's unavoidable. Wash's mind feels heavy and weighed down every time he speaks to the AI; the scars on the back and side of his neck and jaw feel tight and flutter with the ghost of old pain.

It's not helping to ease the tension. If anything, it makes it worse. Wash is the only one who genuinely likes and trusts everyone on their team right now- even Epsilon, for all that it's hard to be around him- and he feels it's his responsibility to make them get along.

*

This is what happens:

They go to the desert to find CT. It's been bothering Wash since he first dug her up, so he'd put it on the list in the hopes that they might find some answers if they go back.

Besides, it'll be nice to be able to say goodbye properly. He wasn't exactly in the mood at the time he'd found her, and he misses her, as much or maybe more than he misses the other Freelancers. Connie had been recruited at the same time he had, had been the only other 'baby' Freelancer on the team, and, for the longest time, had been one of his best friends. She'd understood him better than any of the others, and didn't tease him the way York and North always did.

And she hadn't told anyone that time she found him crying in his room because his sister had sent him a message saying that one of his cats had needed to be put down. She'd just held him until the ache had eased, rubbing gentle circles on his back and humming softly.

Thinking about Connie sucks the air out of his lungs and leaves him hunched over in the seat of the Warthog. She'd _tried_ to warn him, but he hadn't wanted to listen.

He wishes he'd listened.

He isn't aware they're stopped until he feels his chestplate being removed and strong hands begin working at his back, pushing away the tension that's built there. He tugs his helmet off- he needs to _breathe_ \- and those hands move up to his neck, rubbing there as well.

The touch is familiar, even through the thick gloves, even across the years, and Wash slowly unfolds himself and leans back against those hands. Maine slides his arms around Wash's waist and buries his face in the back of the other's neck.

“Why are we stopped?” Wash asks. “We're not at the temple yet.”

Maine rumbles, and falls down into a purr _._ A bathroom break, then. By Wash's reckoning, that means they've got five, maybe ten minutes before it's time to move again. He shifts around so that he and Maine are face to face, and leans their foreheads together.

“I was thinking about CT,” he admits. “How I should have listened to her when she tried to warn me that the Project was going sour.”

A hiss, a growl, crushed together like shave ice. Wash shakes his head, an awkward motion given their current position.

“At the time all I could think was that she was just one more person who'd pushed me away and left me behind. Some best friend I turned out to be, huh?” He sighs, and lets his eyes fall shut. “I should have listened.”

Maine shifts his hands up to Wash's neck and kneads at the skin there with his thumbs. It's all he can do, really; he's another of those people who'd pushed Wash away and left him behind. Wash just falls silent, letting Maine soothe away some of his tension. It won't last, but it'll be nice for a little while, anyway.

*

This is what happens:

It's not CT.

Wash isn't really sure how he feels about this. He does know this: if Tucker is right, the Insurrectionist leader had taken CT's identity along with her gear. Given what Carolina has told him, he suspects that the act was a gesture of love, letting CT live on through him, but it makes Wash's stomach turn to think about because _who did he think he was_ getting Connie killed and then stealing her name and her identity?

Wash kicks the sand back over the Insurrectionist and feels better knowing that he died at the hands of a group of useless idiots, in a desert, and found himself in a mass, unmarked grave. Serves him right for taking their CT away from them, he thinks.

*

When Carolina goes off to the fortress, and Epsilon disappears at the same time (Wash has his suspicions, but doesn't ask), the relief in the air is almost tangible. Wash and Maine both relax so visibly that the Reds and Blues are startled by the change in them.

They sit outside the temple, ostensibly on guard but in all honesty the chance to have a little bit of time to themselves is a powerful motivator. Wash takes the first watch while Maine settles against the wall and watches him. It's quiet but for the first time in forever it's the comfortable quiet, the kind they haven't had since Sigma came along.

(Of course, moments with Maine had always been quiet- he never said much even before the incident on the freeway. But Wash learned to read the silences, and the things Maine was saying even when he was silent. He spoke with body language, every motion speaking volumes that Wash heard as easily as if he'd spoken them out loud.)

Behind them, they can hear Caboose 'sneaking' up on them. Wash sighs; Maine rumbles a hello.

Caboose says a lot of things, things that make more sense to him than to them.

Then he says they're friends, and leaves.

Wash is quiet after that. It's a thoughtful silence this time.

*

Wash doesn't speak again until they've swapped shifts. He's sitting against the wall while Maine stands at the edge of the temple, a big silhouette framed against the desert stars. He doesn't make a sound when Wash speaks, but his body shifts ever so slightly and Wash knows he's listening.

“The Reds and Blues want us to stay with them,” he says. Maine shifts again; agreement. “But they probably also intend for Epsilon to stay with them as well.”

The body tenses. Wash feels ragged.

He _wants_ to stay with them. He likes them, and they've done so much for him that he can never, ever repay. And he knows Maine likes them too. But the tension Epsilon brings to both of them is tangible, painful, and he doesn't know if they can handle it.

“Just something to think about,” he says quietly, and goes back to watching the desert.

*

This is what happens:

Carolina returns. Epsilon is with her.

Tensions are even higher now than ever before. Whatever happened while they were at the fortress has built a bond between Carolina and Epsilon, but a wall between Epsilon and his friends. Wash overhears him tell them that they just don't understand, and snorts. Of course they don't understand, that's why they keep asking questions.

He says nothing, though, just watches, and tries to be a good soldier to Carolina because the Reds and Blues don't understand but he does, a little, he thinks, and he knows she needs it, especially with how tense things are.

(Sometimes when he thinks about Carolina he gets a flash of memory, a little girl with strawberry-blonde pigtails and one of her front teeth missing, holding up a pair of scraped-up palms like a trophy and proudly declaring that she made it to the top of the tree, _all on my own, did you see me, Daddy? Were you watching?_ He tries not to dwell too much on the thought; it makes it hard for him to breathe.)

*

Their next stop is Valhalla.

The closer they get, the more Wash feel like he's going to throw up. When they stop to rest at night, he dreams of pink armor and wakes up curled in on himself, fists clenched so tightly that his gauntlets are creaking under the strain. Maine's hands are on the back of his neck again, rubbing away tension, and it gets him back under control but doesn't make him feel much better because the reality he's woken to is the same reality that he dreams of.

*

This is what happens:

They reach Valhalla. Donut is alive; Doc is with him. Wash feels like a weight has been lifted but not much of one, because it's only chance that he's alive at all; Wash still tried to kill him. But he's alive. Wash has a chance to make it right. That matters.

Epsilon remembers everything. Epsilon gets angry, Epsilon yells. Epsilon places the last bricks in the wall he's built between himself and his friends.

Carolina wants to use them as bait, as cannon fodder. She threatens to kill one to make the rest cooperate. Wash thinks of countless death reports, thinks of acceptable losses and pink armor, and pulls a gun on his CO.

Epsilon and Carolina leave. They take the tensions with them.

*

It's almost surreal, really, how normal everything seems now.

Tucker argues that since they have Donut again, the Reds are four strong and that means the Blues get to keep both Wash _and_ Maine. The Reds complain; Sarge tries to trade Grif for one of them. Tucker points out that this trade would mean splitting up both Grif and Simmons _and_ Wash and Maine, and good luck getting _that_ to work.

Maine and Wash follow Tucker back to Blue base. Maine speculates about recoloring his brown accents blue. Caboose chatters about letting them take the room beside his; Tucker advises them against it.

The Reds and Blues get back to their unending game of Capture the Flag. Wash does most of the strategic work. They take the flag, and make the Reds jump through hoops to get it back. When that gets boring, they take other stuff, too.

Maine works out. His movements are less sluggish than they were; less stilted. Wash comes back from Red base with banana bread to find him doing push-ups in their room, or in the room that will be theirs once a bed is put in, and remembers a thousand similar instances back on the Mother of Invention. He sits cross-legged on Maine's back and eats his banana bread and Maine does more push-ups, and hisses that Wash is a dick but makes no motion to remove him.

When Maine has had enough of doing pushups, Wash sits beside him and offers him some of the banana bread. They sit side by side against the wall of the room that will be theirs, eating banana bread and it's a good moment and Wash enjoys it because he knows it won't last. It'll only be so much time before the Reds and Blues decide to rush into a situation they're woefully underprepared for because that's what they do, he's learned that himself the hard way, and he'll go along because at least then they stand a chance.

He doesn't know what Maine will do. Probably come along too.

Besides. The Director has hurt them too. They deserve some closure.

*

This is what happens:

It's another two days before the topic of following Carolina and Epsilon comes up. They discover that Grif has been keeping the bruteshot since he took it from Maine at Sidewinder. He says he's renamed it the Grifshot, and Maine punches him in the head for it. He whines until Wash points out that he once saw Maine decapitate a guy with one punch and Grif whimpers because he doesn't realize that Wash was trying to reassure him that Maine _likes_ him and wouldn't hurt him.

Doc interrupts. He gives them a motivational speech about how close they've all become, how much of a family they are.

The knowledge of what they're going to do passes between them. It's a crescendo that's been been building for days and in a way, they've all known. They've just been waiting for the right moment.

Wash tries to stop them. He has an idea of what they'll be up against, even if the others don't. He knows what the Director is capable of, even if the others don't.

He knows they don't stand a chance.

They go anyway.

*

o/o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter and an epilogue left.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wash was _really_ looking forward to getting his own AI. Everything goes to hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should point out here that I don't quite go along with the depiction of Wash's breakdown as shown in the show, because it's very tame and mild. Rather, I headcanon that as the _beginning_ , and everything in this chapter takes place right afterward.

o/o

*

This is what happened:

Wash was  _so excited_ to get an AI. He'd expected to wait, but he was next in line, and there was one ready for him and he was nervous but he was  _excited_ . He'd befriended Delta and Theta (their hosts complaining that he was rubbing off on them) and seen the bond they had with York and North, and he  _wanted_ that.

Then they took him into implantation, and everything went to shit.

*

They told Alpha that Agent Washington was dead. That he'd died because of faulty plans that Alpha had made.

Alpha knew Washington. Had memories of the kid from before they copied the Director to make him. Knew him since he was a baby. His mother had served with Allison; had been her friend. Alpha remembered a goofy looking kid with a head too big for himself, trailing after a little girl with strawberry pigtails. Remembered that same girl pushing him around on a skateboard until he'd fallen off and knocked out one of his teeth, and all the trouble she'd gotten into over that.

Remembered seeing him in the mess hall fifteen years later, drinking chocolate milk from a curly straw, and wondering whether bringing him onto the Project was the best idea after all.

Alpha knew other things, too, from poking at people's logs: he knew that Wash wrote letters to his sister every night. He knew that Wash had an entire file in his storage unit that was nothing but pictures of cats. He knew that Wash had a rubber duck, even though there were no bathtubs on the ship. He knew that Wash tried to befriend the people he worked with, because he believed, completely sincerely, in the idea that they were a family.

He knew that Wash was a dumb kid who had no place in this war because war is no place for people who still ate dinosaur chicken nuggets when they were feeling sad, and that now Wash wasn't in this war anymore and that was all Alpha's fault, because he'd messed up somewhere, gotten something wrong.

Then they told him Tex was dead, too, and he shattered.

*

This is what happened:

Epsilon woke up in a dead man's head, and realized he'd been lied to.

He'd started breaking down at the realization, searching the memories he'd been made of to see where the lie began. He pulled them apart and when he couldn't find what he'd been looking for, he sought answers in Wash's memories instead. Dragging up memories of past missions, of training and briefings and debriefings and off-hours and leave and digging, digging, digging, searching for that one discrepancy, the place where the memories diverged and the lie began, hoping to find some  _reason_ to it all.

He'd pulled his own and Wash's minds apart at the seams looking for an answer, and when he could find none, he self-destructed.

*

This is what happened:

Wash woke up to memories upon memories upon memories, and realized he'd been lied to.

He shouted himself hoarse begging for it to stop, begging the AI to let him be, and when his voice gave out he shouted inside his own head instead. He clawed at the implant, trying to dig it out, leaving deep trenches in the back of his neck, along the sides and his jaw, bloody gauges that tore down to the muscle until the doctors were able to restrain him.

All he could do now was shout, and scream, and yell, and beg, and beg, and beg and beg and  _beg_ for it to end. Then he went quiet, eerily quiet, and the monitors watching him exploded with sound, and this time they didn't bother asking the Director's permission to take him back to surgery and have the implant removed.

The first time Wash woke, he thought he was Dr. Church. His throat hurt, and his head was throbbing, and he couldn't speak and he had no idea where he was but he knew he needed to get to her. Then his pain meds kicked in and he fell back into a muffled sleep, memories flitting by in his dreams, too fuzzy and incoherent to grab hold of.

The second time he woke up, he had peered groggily up at Maine, hovering over him, and Maine's hand wrapped reassuringly around his had reminded him of who he was, and he'd managed to get the corner of his mouth to tug up, just a bit, before he once more felt sleep beckoning. Maine's hand tightened on his just as he lost consciousness.

The third time he woke up, he was alone. His head was throbbing, but things were much clearer now. He lay there for a long time, thinking over what he'd seen, what Epsilon had shown him, and was glad when sleep claimed him again.

The fourth time he woke up, North and South were there. They told him that Epsilon had been removed, that no one else was getting an AI and that the others were being taken out too, and South bitched because that's what South did, and he bit back the urge to tell her that she'd gotten off lucky, because he wasn't yet sure how to explain that the man they'd all trusted, the man they all looked up to and whose approval meant everything to them, had lied to them.

*

This is how it changes:

Wash isn't willing to let Carolina walk into that room alone. She fights him on it. Says she has to do it alone. Says he doesn't understand.

“Yes I do,” he says. “I understand more than you know. That's why I need to be there too.”

When Carolina walks into that room, Wash is at her side. He says nothing while Carolina speaks to the Director, doesn't interrupt Epsilon's rant. Carolina sets her pistol down and leaves. Epsilon says his piece and follows, and it's Wash's turn.

“David.”

_I told you not to call me that_ . The words form on his lips and die away just as quickly. The man looking up at him is broken, bent and shattered and pitiful. The video on the screen is just like the memory that plays in his head sometimes when he sleeps, blending together with a hundred, a thousand more just like it.

“There are days when I wake up and I can't tell if I'm Agent Washington or Leonard Church,” he says. “Days when the memories Epsilon left behind are so strong they overpower mine and I can't push away the feeling that the world is caving in on me and there's a lifeline there, just out of reach, and no matter what I do I can't grasp it.”

And he thinks that might be how the Director feels all the time, and that's why he pities the man, even though he hates him, even though he can't forgive him.

“I know why you did the things that you did. I just wish you hadn't, because you were _brilliant_ , and you gave us everything. You gave us a family and something to fight for, and we could have done amazing things for you but you took all that away from us.”

Silence. Wash isn't sure he can take much more of the broken out man in front of him. He wishes he would shout, yell, cause a fuss. Instead he just looks back at the screen, as the video replays all over again. Wash sighs, and turns to go. A hand reaches out and catches his wrist; he looks down at the Director, who stares back up at him.

“You'll take care of her for me, won't you?” His voice is weary, as tired as the lines that crease Wash's forehead and the glints of silver in his hair. Wash can think of a million more things to say, but doesn't. He suspects the Director already knows.

“We'll take care of each other,” he says, instead. He puts his helmet on and this time, the Director doesn't stop him from leaving.

*

This is what happens:

The authorities are both more and less surprised to see them than they should be. Carolina passes herself off as a Blue simulation trooper. Their charges are dropped and they're offered a ride back to Earth, back to Valhalla, back to Blood Gulch. Back to wherever they want to call home. They choose Blood Gulch. Wash has only ever been there once and it's a shithole, but it's home for them. What they don't say, but what Wash hears in their meaning anyway, is that it can be a home for him too.

For all of them.

Wash takes Maine's hand, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“Are we sure we want to go with them?”

A soft hum, and a purr that sounds like music.  _Home_ .

“All right. Let's go home, then.”

As they board the ship, Wash overhears the Reds and Blues arguing about which team gets to keep their newest Freelancer.

Some things  _never_ change.

*

o/o

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue. Closure.

*

They're given three rooms on the ship. The Blues take one and the Reds take another and Carolina, by unanimous decision of no one wanting an angry shark-jaguar lady on their hands, takes the third.

The first night there, after Tucker and Caboose have gone off to the showers, Maine crawls up into Wash's bunk and lays his head on Wash's lap. It's the first time they've had together out of armor since before they left Valhalla, and the first time at all since Maine got back full command of his body.

Wash smiles down at him and brushes his fingers through the downy curls just appearing on Maine's head. He's decided to let it grow out from his habitual buzz, hoping to cover the brand Sigma had tattooed onto him, and now he purrs contentment while Wash plays with it. It's weirdly reminisce of past nights, a lifetime ago, when Wash would curl up with his head in Maine's lap while Maine tried to persuade his hair to lie flat.

Wash chuckles as Maine lets out a particularly content rumble. He leans down and steals a kiss, then rests their foreheads together. “Missed you,” he says quietly. Maine rumbles his agreement and steals another kiss. He says nothing, but his meaning is clear. He isn't leaving again.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though this is indeed the end of the main narrative, this series is by no means over. I have at least one more deleted scene written up, and I'm thinking of going back and expanding on some of Wash and Maine's memories from the first chapter.
> 
> Regarding the Chorus arc, I won't be doing anything with that, at least not at the moment. For one thing, I don't like to mess with a storyline that isn't complete yet; for another, I also haven't really decided how Maine's presence will change the Chorus arc, or how the Chorus arc will affect Maine.


End file.
